Dr. J. L. Walker wrote in his Introduction to the 1907 English translation of Max Stirner’s “The Ego and His Own”:<\/p>\n
We owe to Dr. Eduard von Hartmann the unquestionable service which he
\nrendered by directing attention to this book in his \u201cPhilosophie des Unbewu\u00dften,\u201d
\nthe first edition of which was published in 1869, and in other writings. I do not
\nbegrudge Dr. von Hartmann the liberty of criticism which he used; and I think
\nthe admirers of Stirner\u2019s teaching must quite appreciate one thing which Von
\nHartmann did at a much later date. In \u201cDer Eigene\u201d of August 10, 1896, there
\nappeared a letter written by him and giving, among other things, certain data from
\nwhich to judge that, when Friedrich Nietzsche wrote his later essays, Nietzsche
\nwas not ignorant of Stirner\u2019s book.<\/p>\nVon Hartmann wishes that Stirner had gone on and developed his principle.
\nVon Hartmann suggests that you and I are really the same spirit, looking out
\nthrough two pairs of eyes. Then, one may reply, I need not concern myself about
\nyou, for in myself I have \u2014 us; and at that rate Von Hartmann is merely accusing
\nhimself of inconsistency: for, when Stirner wrote this book, Von Hartmann\u2019s
\nspirit was writing it; and it is just the pity that Von Hartmann in his present form
\ndoes not indorse what he said in the form of Stirner, \u2014 that Stirner was different
\nfrom any other man; that his ego was not Fichte\u2019s transcendental generality, but \u201cthis transitory ego of flesh and blood.\u201d It is not as a generality that you and I differ,
\nbut as a couple of facts which are not to be reasoned into one. \u201cI\u201d is somewise
\nHartmann, and thus Hartmann is \u201cI\u201d; but I am not Hartmann, and Hartmann is
\nnot \u2014 I. Neither am I the \u201cI\u201d of Stirner; only Stirner himself was Stirner\u2019s \u201cI.\u201d Note
\nhow comparatively indifferent a matter it is with Stirner that one is an ego, but
\nhow all-important it is that one be a self-conscious ego, \u2014 a self-conscious, self-willed
\nperson.<\/p><\/blockquote>\nHere is the section of Von Hartmann’s “Philosophy of the Unconscious” that treats of Stirner:<\/p>\n
Extremely instructive in this reference is
\n” Der Einzige und sein Eigenthum,” by Max Stirner, a book that nobody
\ninterested in practical philosophy should leave unread.
\nThis book subjects all ideals having an influence on practice
\nto a destructive criticism, and shows them to be idols
\nthat only possess power over the Ego so far as the latter
\nconcedes such to them in its self-mistaking weakness. It
\ncleverly and piquantly demolishes with forcible reasons
\nthe ideal aims of political, social, and humanitarian Liberalism; and shows how the Ego alone can be the smiling
\nheir of all these ideals thus reduced to impotent nothings.
\nIf these considerations only had the purpose of confirming
\nthe theoretical position that I can as little step out
\nof the frame of my self-hood as out of my skin, nothing
\nneed be added ; but as Stirner professes to have found
\nin the Idea of the Ego the absolute standpoint for action,
\nhe either falls into the same error that he had combated
\nin the case of the other ideals, such as Honour, Freedom,
\nRight, &c., and places himself at the mercy of another
\nenthralling idea, whose absolute sovereignty he recognises,
\nnot however for this or that reason, but blindly and
\ninstinctively, or he conceives the Ego not as idea but as
\nreality, and with no other result than the perfectly empty
\nand meaningless tautology that I can will only my own
\nwill, think only my own thoughts, and that only my own
\nthoughts can become motives of my willing a fact as
\nundeniable by his opponents as by himself. If, however,
\nand only in that case has his conclusions any sense, he
\nmeans that we ought to acknowledge the IDEA of the Ego
\nas the only governing one, and to admit all other ideals
\nonly so far as they have a value for the former, he
\nshould first have examined the idea of the Ego. He
\nwould then before all have found that, as all the other
\nideals are the cues of instincts in pursuit of special ends,
\nso the Ego is the cue of a universal instinct, egoism,
\nthat is related to the special instincts somewhat as a
\nseason to a day ticket, of which many special instincts
\nare only derivatives in particular cases, and with which,
\ntherefore, we can get along tolerably well after all other
\ninstincts have been banished, which even, on the contrary,
\nis never entirely to be dispensed with as long as we live.
\nThus it is certainly more pardonable to accord an unconditional
\nsovereignty to this instinct than to any other ;
\nbut although in the abstract the error is the same in the
\ntwo cases, the consequences are far worse in the exclusive
\nhomage paid to egoism. Other instincts, namely, if they
\nare only sufficiently strong, can frequently be pacified,
\nalthough commonly only with sacrifice of happiness on
\nthe whole, which makes them unprofitable ; but egoism
\nis, according to our former inquiries, never to be satisfied,
\nbecause it always procures an excess of pain.
\nThis perception, that from the point of view of the ego
\nor the individual the denial of the will or forsaking of
\nthe world and renunciation of life is the only rational
\ncourse, Stirner entirely misses. It is, however, an infallible
\nspecific for an over-balanced egoism. Whoever
\nhas once realised the preponderating pain that every
\nindividual must endure, with or without knowledge, in his
\nlife, will soon contemn and scorn the standpoint of the
\nself-preserving and would-be enjoying in a word, self-affirming
\nego. He who has come to hold lightly his
\negoism and his ego will hardly insist upon the same as
\nthe absolute pivot on which everything must turn, will
\nrate personal sacrifice less highly than usual, will less
\nreluctantly accept the result of an investigation which
\nexhibits the Ego as a mere phenomenon of a Being that
\nfor all individuals is one and the same.
\nContempt of the world and life is the easiest path to
\nself-denial ; only by this path has a morality of self-denial,
\nlike the Christian and Buddhist, been historically possible.
\nIn these fruits which it bears for facilitating the infinitely
\ndifficult self-renunciation lies the immense and hardly to
\nbe sufficiently estimated ethical value of Pessimism.
\nBut lastly, had Stirner approached the direct philoso
\nphical investigation of the Idea of the Ego, he would have
\nseen that this idea is just as unsubstantial and brain-created
\na phantom (cp.
\n” Das Ding an Sich,” sect, iii ,
\n” Das
\ntranscendental^ Subject”), as, for instance, the Idea of
\nhonour or of right, and that the only being which answers
\nto the idea of the inner cause of my activity is
\nsomething non- individual, the Only Unconscious, which
\ntherefore answers just as well to Peter’s idea of his ego
\nas Paul’s idea of his ego. On this deepest of all bases rests
\nonly the esoteric ethics of Buddhism, not the Christian ethics.
\nIf one has firmly and thoughtfully made this cognition his
\nown, that one and the same Being feels my and thy pain,
\nmy and thy pleasure, only accidentally through the intervention
\nof different brains, then is the exclusive egoism
\nradically broken, that is only shaken, though deeply shaken,
\nby contempt of the world and of life ; then is the standpoint
\nof Stirner finally overcome, to which one must at
\nsome time have entirely given adhesion in order to feel the
\ngreatness of the advance ; then first is Egoism sublated as
\na moment in the consciousness of forming a link in the
\nworld-process, in which it finds its necessary and relatively,
\ni.e., to a certain degree, authorised place.<\/p><\/blockquote>\nIn this connection, here is a telling passage from Stirner’s “The Ego and His Own”:<\/p>\n
The child was realistic, taken up with the things of this world, till little by little
\nhe succeeded in getting at what was back of these very things; the youth was idealistic, inspired by thoughts, till he worked his way up to where he became
\nthe man, the egoistic man, who deals with things and thoughts according to his
\nheart\u2019s pleasure, and sets his personal interest above everything. Finally, the old
\nman? When I become one, there will still be time enough to speak of that.<\/p><\/blockquote>\nStirner, unfortunately, never lived to be an old man, but died from an insect bite when he was 49 years of age, and wrote nothing significant after his magnum opus<\/em>, which was published when he was 38 years of age. Ernst Juenger, on the other hand, who lived to be 102 and who remained an “admirer of Stirner’s teaching,” at least until 1977 when he wrote Eumeswil<\/em> at about age 82, and at least until age 90 when the interviews published in The Details of Time<\/em> were recorded (even though these interviews are tinctured with Christianity), and presumably until the end of his life (even though he converted to the Roman Catholic Church a year before his death) in 1998, wrote in 1951<\/a> (when he was about 56):<\/p>\n
The great experience of the forest consists of the encounter with the Ego, with the self, with the inviolate core and essence that sustains the temporal and individual appearance. This encounter, so decisive for the conquest of health and for the victory over fear, is also supreme in its moral value. It leads to the primal basis of all social intercourse, to the man whose example defines individuality. In this sphere we will encounter not only community but also identity. This is the symbolic meaning of the embrace: the Ego recognizes itself in the other human being in the saying, \u201dThis is you.\u201d The other can be the beloved, the sufferer, or the helpless victim. In giving help, the Ego helps its own immortal essence and confirms the basic ethical order of the universe.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
But I must say that while I agree with Hartmann that Stirner himself did not closely examine the idea of the ego itself, I don’t agree that Stirner professed to have found in the idea of the ego an absolute standpoint for action. Rather, I think Hartmann was closer to the mark when he supposed that Stirner conceived the ego not as an idea but as reality, while Hartmann missed the mark in supposing that all this conception resulted in was tautology. Tautology, in any event, is underrated, as all definition ultimately amounts to tautology.<\/p>\n
Stirner only cleared the way. It is left to us to enquire, as Ramana Maharshi recommended, “Who am I?” I suspect the answer is not quite Fichte’s (or Hartmann’s?) transcendental generality, nor what Stirner did refer to (albeit only briefly) as transitory and finite and mortal.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
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Dr. J. L. Walker wrote in his Introduction to the 1907 English translation of Max Stirner’s “The Ego and His Own”: We owe to Dr. Eduard von Hartmann the unquestionable service which he rendered by directing attention to this book in his \u201cPhilosophie des Unbewu\u00dften,\u201d the first edition of which was published in 1869, and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2404","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.peoplevstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2404","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.peoplevstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.peoplevstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peoplevstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peoplevstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2404"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.peoplevstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2404\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2407,"href":"https:\/\/www.peoplevstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2404\/revisions\/2407"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.peoplevstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2404"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peoplevstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2404"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peoplevstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2404"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}